But I hear them, too. They just want to develop software, and to ignore all this other BS, and the BS keeps hitting them, and they're tired of having to deal with it. I can see why, too. I can see how this stuff would get to you after a year or two, or a decade or two.
I think the takeaway from their point is, they need to attack specifics when they occur. But I think your point is, they need to not make that their focus, or it's going to ruin their ability to actually work with males.
That's a tough balance to maintain. It stinks that they have to do so.
> That's a tough balance to maintain. It stinks that they have to do so.
That's true, but it's also life in general, I'll explain what I mean.
I'm an agnostic who tends towards atheism with a very specific policy. I will not lie to people about my religious views, but I will let them make assumptions. Many people assume I'm Christian and I never disabuse them of that notion. The reason is simple: For me, the issue isn't important. I believe more in people than ideologies. For them, it is important, so let them have their comfort. Their beliefs do not offend me, and I defend their right to have them without harassment (I dislike Atheism in general even though I tend towards that thought process).
In all my years, I've only ever had a single person ask me straight out if I was Christian (in a work environment). I was working through an outsourcing company, and a week later they were asked to replace me with someone else. In essence I was "fired".
It's was unfair, and it was crap. I doubt you'll find many people who will disagree with you. Could it truly have been a coincidence? Possibly, but I find the likelihood of it very doubtful.
I took it as just more bullshit that's happened. I didn't get particularly offended by it, I certainly didn't start painting everyone with the brush that I'm a victim and they're terrible.
people are shit sometimes, you just move on. You deal with your own shit.
This is all to say that I understand their point of view, and this is one of the reasons why I reject them in general.
To bring it back on topic, it is tough, and maybe it is unfair. But woman have a right to an opportunity, they do not have a right to no bullshit. Someone making unwanted sexual advances isn't a problem. Someone doing it after it's been made clear they're unwanted is. Someone playing grabass is absolutely a problem that needs to be dealt with immediately.
However, someone dismissing an opinion because they have a bias against women is not something they need to be crusading against, and the reason is quite simple: I've had my opinion dismissed for being male (by them), for being a software developer (by business people), for political reasons (I'm a freelance software dev... I'm sure you can imagine).
There are shit environments no matter who you are, what you believe, or what you look like. But you deal with them and move on because that's life, it isn't perfect, and you do not have a right to everyone being perfectly fair to you.
This is a separate issue from why women do not join our industry, but it gets conflated. We do not have a problem with women entering our industry and then leaving (anymore than men). We have a problem with women not entering at all.
They hurt themselves by conflating the two, and causing many people (like me) to stop listening to them. At the end of the day, we have to deal with shit too, and when they put themselves on the list of shit we have to deal with, we have a tendency to simply move on. We cannot emotionally engage, because we'll get angry.
If they want us to emotionally engage, they need to approach it differently.
indeed. i wish the social justice crowd had come up with a better phrase than "check your privilege", because if people like the op only realised it, this is precisely what it is referring to.
